


Anemone

by enmity



Category: Tales of Series, Tales of Xillia
Genre: F/F, TOX1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 19:10:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15936536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: The sun is stuck in her eyes and the woman’s irises are almost as bright, a challenging sort of red that Leia thinks should frighten her, but doesn’t. It draws her in instead.





	Anemone

**Author's Note:**

> i'm finally off the whack train, thank god, anyway this is clearly five years late but milleia is a sweet pairing and i wanted to write something for it u_u 
> 
> title is cuz i can't get kamichama karin's WATASHI NO MEGAMI out of my head and that's...milla

Milla steps into her life at the same time Jude returns to it. Leia spends a while thinking it’s supposed to mean something, that it’ll make sense once she _gets_ it; that the reason she didn’t immediately feel threatened upon seeing them together was because at the time, she was too busy thinking something like _oh my god, what happened to her legs,_ or maybe _wow, I’m so glad I learned how to swim_.

There’s only so much information her head could take in at once, which is something Jude would say, except he’ll say it all flat and matter-of-fact, like it’s somehow Leia’s fault she’s overwhelmed that he had to come back in town, without warning and with an impossibly gorgeous twenty-year-old in tow— and after not writing back to her for what, two years?

Two years. The exact amount of time she’s been holding her breath for.

So: Leia drags herself out with the wheelchair, clothes soaking wet, and spends a good thirty seconds wheezing, profusely coughing out any saltwater she might’ve swallowed. The sun is stuck in her eyes and the woman’s irises are almost as bright, a challenging sort of red that Leia thinks should frighten her, but doesn’t. It draws her in instead.

Leia pounds on her chest and smiles and if she doesn’t spend the next few weeks endlessly speculating the particulars of just _why_ her childhood friend is with a woman who should be a supermodel but instead calls herself Maxwell, then it’s because—

She’s always been kind of an airhead. And if there’s no jealousy, no yoke of unrequited love pulling her into anxiety, then maybe… maybe she doesn’t have a problem at all. Shouldn’t that be a good thing? And if jealousy only exists when you think yourself as being worthy of what you covet, then, well, that’d explain it all, wouldn’t it?

She isn’t, she never is.

So Leia outstretches her hand. Their eyes meet: she blinks, hard, and her smile broadens into a sunny, full-out grin to hide it.

“It’s nice to meet you! I’m Leia; Leia Rolando. And you’re…?”

—

When she’s next to Milla, she stands a little straighter, smiles a little bigger, speaks a little louder. She’s too used to Jude keeping her in check, always looking out for her and cautioning when she gets a step too close to danger, but when she’s fighting alongside the blonde she finds herself aiming her staff with more precision, more force, spinning them triumphantly over her head after another job done, and she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it until she catches Milla staring at her in the middle of a spontaneous victory pose, and Leia—blushes.

Furiously.

“Please don’t laugh,” she stammers, after a moment to confirm Jude isn’t within earshot, and ducks her head. Milla looks at her like she doesn’t understand, like her embarrassment is the silliest thing of all, and Leia wonders if she’ll ever get used to being around the Lord of Spirits at the same time she suspects she’s beginning to understand how Jude feels.

“I don’t see why,” Milla says, folding her arms. She smiles, “I find your enthusiasm… rather endearing, as a matter of fact.”

Leia cradles the trusted staff in her hand, dragging one languid foot across the grass. She looks at the ground. Her face is still pink.

“I’m always getting ahead of myself,” she says slowly. She doesn’t like to admit it, but some days uncertainty comes even easier to her than a smile or a joke, and it feels almost painful when she notices it seeping into her voice, every quiet syllable. Cheerful, unbreakable Leia— she isn’t supposed to feel that way. But she knows Milla will look right through her regardless. Leia looks at her, and Milla blinks. “I mean… Can I ask you something?”

“Yes?”

“Am I,” she remembers Kanbalar, remembers Agria and her words that had been needles, _you’re such a loser_ , remembers Alvin and the shadows in his eyes and _how could she have missed it?_ Remembers how Jude had told her that maybe she shouldn’t have followed him, and he doesn’t understand anything but maybe he’d been right. Maybe he knew better after all. The wind rings in the empty air around them, and abruptly: “Am I a burden?”

“I see you didn’t take my words to heart.” She turns around, “If so, then I have no interest in continuing this conversation.”

“I know. But I’m not… like you.”

“Do you wish you could be?”

“Sometimes.” Her grip tightens. She tries to laugh, “I mean, you’re _Maxwell_! Who wouldn’t, right?”

“Well, you shouldn’t.” Milla’s voice is frank. “Not you, Leia.”

She blinks, and Milla is looking at her again. Gently, she brings her hand to pat her head; a gesture that should have been patronizing rather than endearing, but in the back of her mind Leia figures the woman probably read about it in a dusty parenting book or something, and like most of Milla’s missteps in human interaction it all circles back to being strangely, ridiculously charming.

Slowly, Leia raises her chin.

“Why?”

“You’re already strong enough, after all.”

—

And then: the goodbye.

She takes a step back and lets Jude have his moment, because he loved her too, still does, and she understands this enough that when her chest constricts as she watches him walk forward, it isn’t because she thinks it should be her there, holding Milla’s hand as the schism disintegrates. Not because she thinks it shouldn’t be, either, and it was Milla who helped her understand that: the fact of her worth, the mistakes she’s allowed to make, and that she shouldn’t have to prove anything to anyone who thinks otherwise. And Leia’s thankful for that.   

It’s just— it hurts. Of course it hurts, watching Milla disappear, leaving for a place further than any of them could reach, and she is still a girl with a crush and she’s allowed to feel sorry for herself, that she didn’t get to say anything, that all she can do is stand and watch the stars fade in the distance as she feels the ache of her empty hand. She squeezes.

“We’ll see each other again, right? Milla?”

Silence. Then light, falling like a curtain all around them.

“I’ll make it happen,” Leia says, stumbling over her words through the tears forming at the edges of her eyes, “because nothing’s impossible for me, you know that? I’ll find a way— I’ll fly if I have to! I’ll fly and I’ll carry you down from the spirit’s realm and we’ll—I’ll—”

She blinks, and the light has disappeared. Milla—Maxwell—looking over her shoulder, perfect as the deity she is, smiling at her, for her, and in the moment before time resumes she turns around and Leia feels the fleeting brush of fingertips against her eyelashes, wiping the tears from them.

But she can’t stop crying, because she is—Milla is—

Her mouth parts.

“Your determination,” Milla whispers, her thumb lingering on her cheek, “that’s what I loved the most from you of all.”

She lets herself wrap her arms around Milla’s shoulders. Leia keeps her eyes open all the way through Milla’s time as human marching towards its end, and when she can no longer feel the warmth of her pressed against her chest, she closes her eyes, and manages to smile.

“Thank you.”


End file.
